permanence
by FeeptheNinja
Summary: She doesn't come back.
1. Chapter 1

**It happens one fine fall day, when Mommy and you are outside playing on the porch. Well, she is sweeping and you are cheerfully crinkling through her leaf piles, but that's just the same as playing to you.**

 **Sometimes people from the village below the wooded hill you live on come up to your house and speak to your mommy about things, although you're never entirely sure what they talk about. Sometimes when people come, Mommy goes with them and comes back a little later looking tired and proud, and then she tells you a new story about a powerful monster-slayer before bed that night.**

 **So today when somebody runs up the stairs, huffing and puffing and red in the face, you think nothing of it at all. You don't notice the way Mommy's face goes white when the somebody tells her their story, and in fact you only raise your head from your inspection of the leaf kingdom when you hear her broom clatter against the stones, and she walks towards you with a strange face, hugs you tightly.**

 **She sits you down on the steps, kisses your forehead, and gets down to look you in the eyes before gently saying "Don't worry, kiddo. I'll be right back, okay?"**

 **And you believe her.**

 **You hug your toy turtle close to your chest, kick your legs, and nod, smiling without a clue why she was being so** _ **serious**_ **all of the sudden. Okay. Okay.**

 **You trust her.**

 **You believe her.**

 **Mommy will be right back, you think, playing idly with the autumn leaves that have fallen onto the porch since the two of you swept.**

 **Mommy is going to be back soon, you think, ignoring the shiver that passes through you every so often as the sun sets, wind blows, and still no noise from the path to your house.**

 **Mommy will be here in the morning, you say out loud after you've reluctantly trundled back indoors, huddled under the futon's blanket, screwing your eyes shut and trying very hard to ignore the howling noises outside.**

 **Mommy will be here tonight, you say very loudly, to absolutely no one at all after you wake up and clumsily try to make breakfast for yourself - which culminates in a lot of spilled water and dry rice all over the floor and you gnawing, discontented, on an apple instead.**

 **Mommy is going to come back, you whisper to yourself after another day has come and gone with no familiar woman at the door and no warm hugs and no smiling faces.**

 **It is two weeks before anyone at all comes to the door, in fact.**

 **And it isn't your mother.**


	2. Chapter 2

**The woman is very tall, very blonde, and very strange. She fed you when she came, but you're not sure if you like her - she's so quiet, compared to your mama at least, and she smiles at you sometimes. But the smile never quite seems to reach her odd, purple eyes, and it's always with a closed mouth and tight lips, never the same kind of big happy grin that Mommy made.**

 **You see the strange woman open her mouth exactly once, in fact, and it is full of sharp, pointy teeth.**

 **You don't want her to grin at you very much at all, after you see.**

 **But the strangest thing of all about the woman, you feel, is that you're not entirely sure if she's actually there. She'll be sitting at the kotatsu one minute, peeling an orange, taking a courteous glance at your crayon drawing every once in awhile, and then you'll look up to say something and there won't be anyone there at all. Like you'd just imagined the whole thing, somebody to live in your big empty house with you until Mommy got back. You've certainly imagined up friends to play with, before. The revelation would not, as a whole, be very surprising to you.**

 **But just before you could firmly convince yourself that the strange blonde woman was just something you'd dreamed up out of loneliness - there she was, her appearance as sudden and silent as her leaving, doing something like making rice or stitching one of your shirts; something that you knew an imaginary thing simply couldn't do.**

 **So she was real.**

 **Maybe.**

 **It's late one night when one of your definitely imaginary friends - a little girl your age, with purple hair and pretty red eyes and very non-threatening teeth - suggests that maybe the whole reappearing and disappearing thing is just something that people _do._**

 **You say that sounds stupid.**

 **She says maybe kids can't do it until they're older.**

 **You say, firmer this time, that it's a patently stupid idea, _and_ besides, none of your storybooks ever mention people just _vanishing_ when nobody's looking.**

 **She says that maybe it happens so often that nobody _needs_ to mention it. Like breathing, or blinking.**

 **You tell her, in a very shaky voice, to shut up.**

 **When the strange woman comes that night to tuck the blankets in, you feel horribly compelled to grab onto her arm and not let go, to cling and cry and look so utterly miserable that she won't have any choice but to lift you out of bed and hold you close and walk you to sleep. You don't quite have the guts for that, though, so you hope that your intensely distressed expression will do the trick instead.**

 **"Hn? What's wrong?"**

 **Her tone is mild, utterly unaffected, and your heart sinks into the pit of your stomach.**

 **You shake your head very slowly, and she shrugs, smooths back the hair on your forehead as if to give you a goodnight kiss - and then apparently thinks better of it, walking away and snuffing the candle on her way out.**

 **You clutch your soft turtle close to your chest, and a wave of something hot and sick washes over you.**

 **You don't think she'll be here in the morning.**


	3. Chapter 3

**You were right.**

 **She isn't there in the morning.**

 **You open every door, every drawer, and even look under the kotatsu.**

 **She isn't there.**

 **You make at least three laps around the house, beginning to tentatively call out for the woman on the** **third; you don't know her name, but you figure 'Hello?' should do just fine, anyway. Your tiny voice nearly echoes through the house.**

 **Nobody answers.**

* * *

 **The sun comes up the next morning, and still no sign of the blonde woman.**

 **You halfheartedly call for her again, but you know she's not going to show up because of it. You have no idea how to get her to show up again at all, actually, and you begin to gnaw nervously at your lip because what if she doesn't ever come back?**

 **You didn't like her a whole lot, but she knew how to make dinner, and she might not have talked a lot but at least she talked some of the time and she was warm and picked you up once or twice and your vision is going a little bit blurry at the idea that she wasn't ever going to come back.**

 **You call for her again that night** **as you're lying in bed - to no avail - and your friend watches with an indeterminable expression as you quietly cry yourself to sleep.**

* * *

 **She isn't there on the third day, either, and you sit down in the middle of the floor in the living room and _scream._**

 **She doesn't come back when you do.**

 **You scream and you scream and you _scream_ until you physically can't anymore, until your throat burns so raw you can hardly swallow and when you manage to you think you can taste something metallic. And even when you can't scream, you try anyway.**

 **Your friend is yelling at you to shut up, that you're going to let all the bad things and monsters outside know where you are. She yells the whole time that you do and your face is wet with frantic tears and you feel a little bit like laughing, for some reason, as she snaps at you again.**

 **What does she think you're doing all this screaming _for?_**

* * *

 **The house is silent and empty.**

 **You don't even bother getting out of bed on the fourth day.**

 **Your friend sits next to you on your bed, and even though you doze intermittently, you are awake often enough to find a story pulled from your shelf and opened up near your pillow, and as you fall asleep you think you hear your friend's voice quietly reading aloud.**

* * *

 **On the fifth day, you drowse awake to the sound of the front door banging open and slamming shut, and you sit up in bed so quickly your head spins. You hold your breath - waiting - waiting - until you hear the woman sigh and mutter something under her breath and you can't hold back your joyful cry as you scramble out from under your covers and barrel down the hallway, yelling and jumping and crying just- a little bit and clinging to her legs. Forming a comprehensible statement is, at this point, not very important, so you just whine and yelp and climb and "Up, up, up, up," because she can't disappear again if she's holding you, can she? Or at least if she did, she'd have to disappear _with_ you. **

**She looks somewhat disheveled, hair sticking out all over with dark circles under her eyes, and she near-completely brushes past you, hardly giving you a glance. This hardly deters you at all - you simply redouble your efforts to hang onto her leg - and you continue begging and babbling in a nonsense way until she stands stock still, _glares_ down at you with an (exhausted) ferocity you've never seen before, bares her teeth and snarls.**

 ** _"What_ is your _problem?!"_**

 **You stare in shocked silence for a good minute, and then begin to bawl. She hisses something terse and sharp under her breath, bends down to pick you up and presses you a bit too tight against her shoulder before briskly walking off, with you in tow, and you are still sobbing and shaking because she _snapped_ at you. She's _angry_ with you.**

 **Look what you did, your friend whispers, and you hide your face in the woman's shoulder in shame.**

 **No wonder Mommy left, your friend sighs, and you somehow manage to cry even louder.**

 **The woman gives an incensed growl.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Your friend has been very talkative lately.**

 **Sometimes, it's sort of nice. "That's a cool drawing," they'll say, or, "Sure, I'll read you that one." You've missed that, missed having someone to say those things to you, so you let them sit next to you and talk even when you aren't trying to imagine them.**

 **Sometimes, though, you really wish they'd stop.**

 **"I wonder," they say, though seemingly engrossed in the puzzle you're doing, "what would happen if you bit her."**

 **You look up in bewilderment, and they blink at you, expression blank, and shrug.**

 **"What? Isn't that what youkai do?"**

 **You're not a youkai, and you remind them of this in little more than a mumble as you try to refocus on the jigsaw puzzle.**

 **"Maybe she'd like you more if you were." There wasn't any malice in their tone, just plain speculation, and that makes it even worse to hear. Your stomach lurches, and you ask your friend, quite politely, to stop talking.**

 **"It was just an idea, _jeez,"_ they grouse, pouting and sticking out their tongue in your general direction.**

 **But they stop, and you feel relieved.**

* * *

 **"I wanna color," they say one day, looking longingly at your paper and worn-down box of crayons. You look up, see them pining away at the other end of the table, and shrug, roll a purple crayon towards them.**

 **Their hand makes a move for it, and the little crayon rolls right through it, as though it weren't there at all.**

 **Sorry, you say, a little guilty-like, and they pout. But you can't color.**

 **"But _you_ can color."**

 **They say this slowly, look at you... intently.**

 **You begin to feel nervous.**

 **They push themselves up onto the table, make their way over to kneel directly on top of your paper, forcing you to stop drawing and pay attention to what they were about to say.**

 **"Let me in."**

 **You blink.**

 **"I wanna color."**

 **You shake your head, equally apprehensive and utterly confused - you don't know what they mean, but it doesn't sound good. Their face falls. Goes from firm to pleading.**

 **"C'mon, _Reeeeei,"_ their face not an inch from yours and you lean back slightly, don't like it when they say your name like that. "Please? I promise it'll only be a minute."**

 **What will only be a minute?**

 **"It won't even hurt."**

 ** _What_ won't even hurt?**

 ** _"Promise."_**

 **Your head is spinning and you are scared and you don't want your friend to be _mad_ and so**

 **"I just wanna color,"**

 **you**

 **"That's all."**

 **nod.**

 **They grin.**

 **"Thanks," they say sweetly, their hand is on your forehead cold dry and you think you are asleep.**

 **.**

 **..**

 **...**

 **You wake up, sitting at the table, crayon in your hand, paper on the table, eyes unfocused and bleary, friend lying down legs under the table.**

 **You look down at the drawing.**

 **"What's that look for?" Your friend asks, irritated.**

 **The red crayon in your hand is ground down to barely a stub.**

 **"Hey, don't throw it away," they say, "That's _my_ picture!"**

 **You really, really want to throw it away.**

 **"Just put it in the closet or something," they grumble. Are they moping? Are they sad that you don't like it?**

 **You don't want to put it in the closet.**

 **You feel like whatever is in this picture is much, much worse than what lives in the closet at night.**

 **You put it in the closet anyway, under anything and everything you could pile on top of it, and your friend looks happy again.**

* * *

 **"Stab her," they say, smiling cheerful and bright, gazing intently at the only mildly sharp metal butter knife in your hand.**

 **You grip it tighter and _stare_ at your friend with an intense kind of incredulity.**

 **"She's no good," your friend continues, "Mean all the time-" a lie, "And a youkai through and through, besides."**

 **You stare.**

 **"You're a shrine maiden, aren't you? Like Mommy?"**

 ** _Was_ that what Mommy was?**

 **"And shrine maidens get rid of youkai."**

 **Was that what shrine maidens did?**

 **"So get _rid_ of her already," your friend says, a red _hunger_ in their eyes, and your mouth goes dry and your stomach turns and you drop the (harmless) knife and you run and you run and you _run_ and you hide behind her legs, hear her shocked inquiries, and you don't care.**

 **You see your friend staring at you not three feet away, as they always are, looking only a _little_ bit sorry.**


End file.
